Sales vs Marketing, two important factors in business, are often confused about their roles and functions. Although they share the same goal of increasing revenue, the approaches and tasks of the two departments are clearly different.
In fact, nowadays, many companies hire marketing staff but assign them the work of a salesman, or vice versa, hire Sales but have to do marketing as well. There are quite a few people who are confusing the work of Sales and Marketing So what is the difference between sales and marketing?
How are Sales vs Marketing different?
Distinguishing Sales vs Marketing
So what is sales and what is marketing? Is there a difference in the concepts of these two positions?
To put it simply, Marketing is doing market – mainly affects consumers to create pull, while sales is selling “what’s in stock” – affecting sellers or customers to create push. Both have the same purpose of solving the business’s output and are very important in business.
Sale is selling products or services.you have to negotiate the wholesale price of the product, convince customers to buy as many goods as possible to get the biggest profit possible. Marketing is a “long-term road” with customers. Marketers must carry out all marketing and Advertising activities so that customers know about the products, services and Brand of the business.
Each part has a different task.
Marketers don’t have to wait until they have a new product to start strategizing.
Before production, they must determine the type of product, target customers, and price. Next, marketers must monitor the production process, which is the stage of turning ideas into actual products.
Finally, after completing the product, with all efforts and creativity, the marketer brings the product to the hands of consumers. Advertising, promotion, PR, and direct marketing programs are launched very loudly so that consumers know about the product and brand. Therefore, this is the most important stage.
At this final stage, the sales team begins to take action. It can be said that the sales department is an extremely important force to achieve the company’s revenue target. Based on the strategies outlined by the marketer, the sales people will use sweet words and tricks to sell as many products as possible, bringing money to the company.
At this stage, without the sales department, marketers cannot turn ideas into reality. Goods cannot reach consumers. Businesses cannot convert goods into money to earn profits. Through the sales force, the marketing department’s plans can become flesh and blood and achieve the desired results.
Two different business perspectives: Should we focus on sales or marketing?
Opinion
According to the sales-focused business perspective: Consumers are conservative and often hesitant and procrastinate in making purchases. Therefore, businesses need to focus all their resources and efforts on promoting sales and promotions, opening more stores, training sales staff to attract and persuade customers to overcome hesitation and procrastination by any means. The standard for evaluating work efficiency is selling a lot of products and earning a lot of money.
The Marketing approach to business goes in the opposite direction of correctly identifying the needs and wants of customers. Target market (customers) and then find ways to ensure the satisfaction of those needs and desires in ways that are more advantageous than competitors. Marketing directs business managers to answer the questions:
– Does the market need to buy all the products the business creates?
– At the price that the business intends to sell, will consumers have enough money to buy it?
Reason
It can be said that the emergence of these two quite opposite business perspectives is based on four main factors: starting point, center of attention, implementation measures, and goals achieved by each form.
Starting point: While the starting point of sales is at the factory, Marketing is the target market – taking the needs and desires of customers as the starting point of business activities.
Center of attention: The focus of selling is on producing the product as intended by the business owner. In contrast, Marketing focuses entirely on understanding customer needs.
Implementation measures: Marketing activities require the use of a combination of measures (marketing mix), not just measures related to sales. Marketing mix measures include external marketing – marketing to customers and internal marketing. Customer marketing means that businesses must find ways to find out the needs of customers and turn those needs into purchasing the business’s goods. Internal marketing means that businesses must do well in stages such as recruiting, training, indoctrinating and motivating all departments and employees of the business for a common operational goal of better satisfying customer needs. To create success for the business, internal marketing must precede external marketing.
Profit target: This is the biggest difference between marketing and sales. The goal of sales is to increase profits by increasing product sales. However, the goal of marketing is macro-level, aiming to increase profits by businesses having to better satisfy customer needs. Marketing is to create value by providing better solutions, helping to reduce the time and effort of customers to find and buy products. Thereby bringing a higher standard of living to society.
Summary
So above are the shared analysis to help readers better understand the two professions. Sales vs Marketing especially understanding the differences of each position. From there, it helps businesses to come up with appropriate and effective recruitment and work plans. Hopefully this will be a useful article for readers.
By: Small Business
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